


Same Old Lang Syne

by Ryah_Ignis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, M/M, This is what happens when I listen to christmas music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-01 08:25:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2766329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryah_Ignis/pseuds/Ryah_Ignis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you do when you meet your ex in the grocery store on Christmas Eve?  Definitely not invite them out for a drink.</p><p>Unless, of course, you happen to be Dean Winchester.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dean

It’s Christmas Eve, and Dean’s oven is on fire.  Dean curses and shakes his oven mitt at the smoke.  In the end, he has to use the fire extinguisher that Sam had insisted on him buying last year.  He’s never been more grateful for his brother’s ridiculous precautions. 

Just as the last flames die down, the phone rings.  Dean scoops it up and hurries into the tiny living room of his apartment before he answers so he doesn't start coughing.

“Hey, Dean.  It’s Sam.”

He grins and sits down in the worn armchair.  Stifling a cough, he answers.

“What’s up, Sam?”

Leave it to his little brother to call at the least opportune time.  Somehow, he always knows.  Dean quickly covers the receiver as the fire alarm starts going off.  It takes him about a minute to rip the batteries out of the smoke detector and by the time he’s done, Sam is shouting into the phone.

“Dean?  Are you listening to a word I’m saying?”

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb.

“Uh, not really.  Sorry, Sam.”

His brother audibly sighs on the other side of the line.  Dean can imagine him standing in the kitchen of his house, shaking his head.

“Jess wanted to know if you’re still bringing that pie.”

Dean glances at the kitchen, which is still smoking.

“Right.  About that—it might be store-bought.”

“It’s all right.  You’ll be here by eight-thirty?”

Dean glances over at the clock.  It already reads eight.  That’s his little brother, all right.

“Probably more like nine," he says.

Sam sighs, again, but he doesn't comment on the lateness.  “Annie can’t wait to see Uncle Dean, can’t you, sweetheart?”

Dean grins at the thought of his niece.  It’s been too long since he’s seen her.  Maybe he should make an effort to get out there more.

“Of course.  I’ll be there soon, Sammy.”

He hears his brother scoff at the nickname before saying goodbye and hanging up.

After making sure that his apartment isn't going to burst into flames, Dean gets into his car and heads for the nearest grocery store.  There’s a thick layer of snow coming down when he gets out.  Dean reflects on how he doesn't have snow tires yet, but it’s eight-sixteen and he’s supposed to be at his little brother’s house in fourteen minutes, so he ignores it.

He turns up his collar against the wind and trudges through the unplowed snow to the twenty-four hour store.  Figures they wouldn't have a twenty-four hour plow, too.

Grumbling about unreliable internet recipes and non-stick pans that weren't non-stick at all, Dean pushes open the door and walks into the store.

None of the employees look particularly happy, not that Dean can blame them.  He smiles at the man at the register and goes to look for his prize.

He somehow finds himself in the frozen foods section when someone bumps into him.  Lettuce hits the ground and Dean turns around.

“Cas?”

“Hello, Dean.”

God, his voice sounds the same.  Dean takes a step back to take a better look at him.  Same dark hair, same blue eyes, he’s even wearing the same stupid trench coat, even though it can’t be very warm.

“Lettuce, man, seriously?  What are you, a rabbit?”

Cas offers him the same exasperated smile.

“It’s healthy,” he says as if that’s a good reason to be purchasing lettuce on the snowiest Christmas Eve that Dean has seen in years.

Honestly, he shouldn't be that pleased to see him—it had been nearly three years now and it wasn't like they’d parted on the best of terms.

“Besides,” Cas continues once it becomes clear that Dean isn't going to jump in any time soon, “Daphne wasn't really thinking when she promised Mother salad this morning.”

Daphne?  Dean stands there frozen for a moment before letting his eyes travel down Cas’s arm to his hand, and then to the ring on his finger.

“Your wife?”

Cas nods.  Dean simply shakes his head, trying to comprehend it.  Naomi Novak is one of the country’s foremost religious teachers.  It probably wouldn't have been good for business if her son had wound up with—well. 

“She’s a good woman,” Cas adds firmly, somehow knowing exactly what Dean had been thinking, just as if the last three years hadn't happened.

“I’m sure she is," Dean replies, because what else is he supposed to do?  “Oh, and uh…Merry Christmas.”

There’s a ghost of a smile on his face when he responds. “Merry Christmas to you, too.  How’s the family?”

It’s the same kind of cookie-cutter question that everyone asks when they run into an old acquaintance, but somehow when Cas says it, it sounds sincere.

“Sam got married—you remember Jess, right?  And, oh—”

He fumbles around embarrassingly for a few seconds before finally managing to extract his wallet from his pocket.  When he flips it open, Annie’s sweet little face beams up at them.

“She’s adorable,” Cas says, reaching out to touch the picture and then withdrawing before he can actually make contact.  “How’s her dad?”

Dean rolls his eyes.  “Taking too many cases as per usual.  I hear more from Jess these days than I do from him.”

Cas laughs, and it’s like a bubble has been released in his chest, growing and expanding until it fills his entire rib cage and feels as if it could float away with him in tow.  Right.  Head in the game, Winchester.

“Is that where you’re headed tonight?  Or…”

Dean notices (perhaps with a little more smugness than necessary) that Cas makes the same cursory look at Dean’s hand for a ring.

“Yeah.  I’m supposed to be getting pie, but I couldn't find the right aisle.”

Cas shakes his head, wearing that same ‘how on Earth do you survive like this?’ expression that Dean is all-too familiar with.

“I know where it is.  Come on.”

It is only then that he realizes that he’s been standing in the frozen foods aisle of the grocery store on Christmas eve with his ex, holding a head of lettuce that doesn't belong to him , for about fifteen minutes.  Cas laces his fingers with Dean’s and tugs him along and because it’s Christmas, Dean lets him.  (There might be another motivation there, too, but he steadfastly ignores it).

“Cherry?” Cas asks, dropping his hand to carefully peruse the aisle.

“And none of that all natural crap.  Processed sugars for me, thanks.”

Cas sighs, and Dean is suddenly reminded of him and Sam getting on his case about health food.

“You’re going to have a heart attack before you’re thirty,” he tuts, but he forks over the cellophane wrapped heart attack anyway.

Without anything being said, they walk to the register, Cas with his lettuce and Dean with his pie.  It’s almost like it was three years ago and they were headed to Sam’s together.

They checkout guy is pretty good-looking, but Dean can’t bring himself to wink at him.  Instead, he fumbles out a “Merry Christmas” and leads the way out into the cold.

The wind has picked up and though there’s still snow floating down, it’s mostly the moving snow drifts that have him concerned.  Cas isn’t bothered by the cold, which Dean knows because he hasn't started with the shifting back and forth thing that happens when he is.  They should part ways right then and there.  Dean’s already late for Sam’s and God knows Naomi Novak can’t last long without her precious lettuce for her salad.

“Hey, Cas?” They've both been standing outside the automatic doors, stalling them, letting warm air gush out.  Dean notes that the cashier is glaring at them and is suddenly glad that he hadn't winked. “Want to get a drink?”

For a moment, he’s afraid Cas will say no, but slowly, he nods.  Without agreeing on anything else, they head for Dean’s car.

Dean can’t explain it, but he’s choosy about who gets the passenger seat of his car.  Some people seem right sitting there and others don’t.  Sam, all but folded in half to fit, is one of them.  Cas, the ever-present trench coat, like armor, tucked carefully beneath him, is another.  That much, at least, hasn't changed.

They don’t say anything for a long moment, and then Dean turns the key in the ignition and the car purrs to life.  The familiar sound fills the need for something, anything loud and a sense of calm drapes over them both.

“How’d you meet her?” Dean asks.

He’s never been good at holding back when he really wants to know something.  This is no different.

“She was two years behind us in school,” Cas tells him, shifting a little uncomfortably.

Lawrence isn't a big town and it definitely isn't a big school, but Dean had never taken much notice of underclassmen.

“Must not have been that memorable, then.”

It’s a low blow, a sly dig that isn't so sly at all.  He sounds like a kid, like the teenager he was when Daphne had apparently been at school with them, but he can’t help it.  Cas flares.  Anyone else might not have noticed, but Dean is as familiar with Cas’s quiet, trembling anger as he is with his smile.

“I like her just fine,” Cas responds, and though he rarely shows it during an argument, Dean has gotten beneath his skin.

Dean arches an eyebrow, the same look that had always made Sam so angry when he had been a kid.

“You don’t ‘like’ the person you marry,” he snaps, keeping his eyes firmly on the road.  “You’re supposed to lo—”

“I chose her,” Cas spits.  “That should be enough.”

Had Cas chosen her, or had it been Naomi?  Swallowing the sour taste in his mouth, Dean turns away, back to the road.  The clock on the dashboard reads eight-thirty, but he knows Sam will understand if he’s late.

“You've got to start thinking for yourself, man.”

The conversation runs dry after that and after Dean passes the only bar in town—closed, typical—he starts to think this is a really bad idea.

“Go back to the store,” Cas says at last.

Dean doesn't want to let Cas walk away, but he isn't about to ignore a direct request.  Stomach like a rock, Dean turns around and drives back.

“Stay.”

He doesn't head for the champagne colored nightmare that he calls a car.  Instead, Cas walks into the store, the doors sliding shut with a hiss behind him.  Dean idles outside, feeling utterly ridiculous.  Eventually, Cas emerges from the store, carrying a plastic bag.

“Enjoy your heart attack,” he says, pulling the pie from the bag.

He has two plastic forks from a package, too, and though it’s way too big for the both of them, Dean’s definitely going to try.

“No concern for my well-being,” he says, clutching his chest in mock hurt.

Cas rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile there, almost too small to tug at the corners of his lips.

“Do you remember the birthday cake we tried to make Sam?” Dean asks, and just like that, the dam is broken.

“That cake you thought needed more baking—”

“—and burned into a scorch mark on the platter?”

“That cake?”

Suddenly, they’re laughing so hard they can’t breathe.

“Told you not to!” Cas gasps out, grabbing at his arm to uselessly try to stabilize himself.

It is just as easy as it had been, just as natural.  Dean’s reminded of the way they had been in high school, best friends who hadn't quite worked out where they stood with each other yet.

He misses it.

“We can hide it with the icing,” Dean quotes, miming icing a cake, remembering the thick scent of sugar and the stickiness of it.

“You used the entire box!”

Later, they’d read the directions and discovered that one box was four servings.  Cas, ever the rule-follower, had been smug.

“Mom was about to explode.”

Silence falls between them.

“I heard about your mother,” Cas says quietly.  “I’m sorry.”

Dean has heard the apology so many times over the last two years.  Every time, it had sounded like ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’  Cas makes it sound like ‘I’m sorry I wasn't there.’

“Thanks.”

They spend the time reminiscing in between bites of the pie, which Cas has no further complaints about after his first taste.

It isn't until they’re talking that Dean realizes how many of his memories he has tucked away.  Years of running through backyards, even after the Novaks had moved to the ‘better’ part of town.  (Even now, years later, Dean rolls his eyes at the thought.  There’s no such thing as better when you only have one stoplight).   Hours spent in the library because of Cas’s need to rattle off the information memorized and Dean’s willingness to go along with it.  Lazy summer days spent at Bobby’s, up to his elbows in grease, Cas laughing because he’d somehow gotten it on his nose.

They run out of pie at the same time that they run out of conversation.  They've talked themselves dry.  Dean’s said all he can about working with Bobby.  Cas has tried and failed to explain his degree.  (“Why do you have a dual Anthropology and World Religion major?”)  eventually, the laughs die down and they are left in the still-idling car, the gas tank slowly ebbing out, staring at each other.

Ten o’clock.

Sam was almost definitely going to kill him.

“I should let you go,” Deans says after the first minute of silence.  “Salads don’t just make themselves.”

The lettuce probably wilted a while ago, but Dean can’t care less.  Cas hesitates before putting his hand on the door handle.

“You were right,” he says, the words sticking at first and then coming out in a garbled rush, tripping and falling and tumbling all over each other in their hurry.  “Daphne—she’s a wonderful woman.  Really, she is.  She would make a fantastic friend, but…she’s not what she’s supposed to be.  Or—well, I’m not making her what she supposed to be.”

Dean is silent, both at the confession and the look in Cas’s eyes—lost and sympathetic all at once.  Then, he sighs and places his hand on Cas’s shoulder.

“If you, uh—I mean.  If you change your mind.  About Daphne, that is.  Um, give me a call.” The smile is weak and he knows it.  “Actually, give me a call anyway.”

They exchange numbers like teenagers.  Both numbers have changed in the last three years.

“Merry Christmas,” Cas offers as he ducks out of the car.  “Goodbye, Dean.”

“Merry Christmas, Cas.”

It’s Christmas Eve and Dean is sitting alone in his car where Cas had been only moments before, next to an empty cellophane wrapper and watching him vanish into the darkness.

Outside, the snow turns into rain.


	2. Cas

It’s Christmas Eve and Daphne is in an absolute panic.  That’s nothing new—she’s usually in at least a bit of a tizzy—but this is crazier than usual.

“Castiel?” she asks, tugging the oven open and stuffing the turkey inside.  “Do you remember the conversation I had with your mother this morning?”

Castiel generally doesn’t remember things about his mother unless strictly necessary, but he knows Daphne is expecting an answer so he shrugs.  “Vaguely.”

She rolls her eyes, sweet and teasing and it should make him fall a little bit more in love but it doesn’t.  He remembers his mother’s words ‘a sickness’ and wonders if it’s true.

Daphne is looking even more frazzled now, so he snaps out of his reverie to lay a hand on her shoulder.  Some of the tension drains from her and her eyes soften.

“It’s just that I think I might have promised her that weird organic lettuce stuff she likes.”

Castiel isn’t one hundred percent sure what organic lettuce stuff she’s talking about, but if his wife is saying that a food is weird, it must be.

“Oh.”

It’s only one word, but it’s enough for Daphne to nod in agreement.  Most people would shrug it off as nothing important, but not Mother.  Castiel looks around the kitchen, which is strewn with all manner of foods as Daphne desperately tries to pull it together.

“I can get it,” he offers, smiling at her.

Daphne relaxes yet again. “Thank you! I’ll text you a picture of the packaging so you get the right stuff.”

And that’s how Castiel finds himself on the road at eight o’clock at night on Christmas Eve.  It’s actually not a bad time to be driving.  The street lamps are all lit, casting a yellow-orange glow over the street.  Snow is floating down, the flakes getting bigger and bigger.  The roads are completely empty.  Everyone else is home, near the fireplace or panicking in the kitchen with their spouse, not getting lettuce for their psychotic mother.

Castiel’s phone buzzes, the light, airy ringtone that he had chosen for Daphne filling the car.  He somehow manages to hit the one red light in the entire town, so he checks it.  Daphne has sent him a picture of an empty wrapper with a smiling sun on the outside.  The text below reads _luv you :)_ _._ Castiel responds as quickly as he could as the red light turns green.  _Love you, too._

The grocery store parking lot is much fuller than he’d thought it would be, so his dream of parking close to the store so he wouldn’t get covered in snowflakes isn’t going to come true.  Castiel slogs through the snow and into the store.  The bottoms of his pants are starting to turn darker with water.

“Can I help you with anything today?” asks the cashier.

It looks like the very last thing on Earth that she wants to do, so Castiel waves her help away.

“Cas?”

He _knows_ that voice.

“Hello, Dean.”

It’s been such a long time.  Cas stares at him, drinking in the sight of him.  He’s got the same smirk on his face and it feels like nothing has changed, even though everything has.

“Lettuce, man, seriously?  What are you, a rabbit?”

Cas finds himself slipping into the banter that they had been so fond of.

“It’s healthy!”

At that, the familiar smirk grows even wider and Cas can’t help but grin back.  Dean doesn’t respond so Cas keeps going.

“Besides, Daphne wasn’t really thinking when she promised Mother salad this morning.”

He doesn’t realize until something freezes on Dean’s face that he doesn’t know about Daphne.  It probably shouldn’t make him smug, but the glance down at the ring on his finger makes him pleased, just a little bit.

“Your wife?”

Cas affirms it with a small nod.  Dean blinks at him, trying to understand.  Cas gets it.  Three years ago, he wouldn’t have understood either.

“She’s a good woman,” he tells Dean, carefully gauging his reaction.

Judging by the sour twist of his mouth, it isn’t a good one.

“I’m sure she is,” Dean says, but it doesn’t sound like that’s what he’s thinking.  “Oh, and uh…Merry Christmas.”

 “Merry Christmas to you, too,” Cas says, more cheerful than he’s been in years.  How’s the family?”

Dean’s face lights up in the same way that it always does when his family is mentioned.  Sam, Mary, it never matters.  It’s clear that he cares about them.

“Sam got married—you remember Jess, right?  And, oh—”

He pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and holds it out for Cas to see.  The little girl in the picture has Sam’s dark hair but Jess’s toothy grin.  She makes Cas think of thens and nows, of would-haves and what-ifs but he shoves them away.

 “She’s adorable.  How’s her dad?”

The last time he’d seen Sam, the young man had been in his second year of law school, constantly up to his ears in text books and term papers.  Dean sighs, fingers dragging through his hair.

 “Taking too many cases as per usual.  I hear more from Jess these days than I do from him.”

Cas can’t help the laugh, which causes a smug smirk on Dean’s face.  Stupid, stupid, stupid!  He shouldn’t fell like this, not right here, not with Dean.

“Is that where you’re headed tonight?  Or…”

His eyes betray him, darting down without his permission to Dean’s hand.  The only ring he’s wearing is one that Cas recognizes as Mary Winchester’s class ring.  She had worn it on a chain around her neck

“Yeah.  I’m supposed to be getting pie, but,” he gestures uselessly, “I couldn’t find the right aisle.”

It takes every ounce of Cas’s well-honed self-control not to roll his eyes.  It’s so classic Dean that it hurts, like a fist driven into his gut.

“I know where it is.  Come on.”

And because he’s an idiot, he grabs Dean by the hand and pulls him along, trying to erase the last three years in one minute.

“Cherry?” Cas asks, carefully withdrawing his hand, ignoring the way they both deflate.

“And none of that all natural crap,” he replies, grimacing as if Cas had suggested eating garbage out of the dump outside down. “Processed sugars for me, thanks.”

Cas rolls his eyes again. “You’re going to have a heart attack before you’re thirty.”

He selects a pie from the top of the pile and hands it over.  He knows the moment Dean grins at him that it’s the right choice.  It’s apple when he’s homesick, blueberry when he’s just won a victory, peach when he’s upset and cherry when he’s nostalgic. 

They reach the register with a strictly professional distance between them.  No more breaking down that particular barrier, no siree, not for him.

Not on purpose anyway.

Checkout takes a remarkably short time and Cas finds himself begging the cashier to slow down.  He needs more time but he can’t bring himself to ask for it, so he’s reduced to silently pleading with Dean to ask for him.

In the end, he knows exactly what Cas wants.

“Hey, Cas?”

They’re caught in the tropical storm of the entrance of the store, warm air and cool air locked in a battle around them.

“Want to get a drink?”

The first time he’d asked, they’d barely graduated.  Lost in the memory, it takes Cas a moment to respond.  All he can manage is a nod.

Good God, he’s acting like a kid.

Cas leads the way to Dean’s car.  It doesn’t surprise him that the car hasn’t been traded out for another.  Dean’s always been protective of his ‘baby.’  Cas used to tease him about it, telling him that maybe it was about time he put it up for adoption.

Cas settles into the passenger seat.  It feels so natural.  The leather folds comfortably around him, hugging his shoulder blades.  Part of him wants to reach over and turn on the radio, let the car fill with the sounds of whatever cassette Dean has pushed in.  The other part knows it would do too much to cover the silence that has grown like a wall between them.

“How’d you meet her?” Dean asks.

He glances over at Dean, who is staring resolutely at the road, acting like the question meant nothing.

“She was two years behind us in school.”

He can’t believe he doesn’t remember.  They’d been in the gardening club together. (Not that Dean would remember Cas’s gardening club mates).

Lawrence isn’t a big town and it definitely isn’t a big school, but Dean had never taken much notice of underclassmen.

“Must not have been that memorable, then.”

Cas can’t help the way his lip curls at the flippant mention and he hates the way that Dean is still refusing to look at him.

“I like her just fine.”

The moment that the words leave his mouth, Cas knows that it was the wrong thing to say.  Dean scowls bitterly, still ignoring Cas’s gaze.

“You don’t ‘like’ the person you marry. You’re supposed to lo—”

Cas hastily cuts him off because it _hurts_. “I chose her.  That should be enough.”

Granted, Mother had been the one to steer them together, but Cas had been the one to take the initiative and make it into something.  Poor Daphne.

“You’ve got to start thinking for yourself, man.”

Cas’s scowl soon matches Dean’s. it’s easy enough for him to preach free will.  Dean, whose mother had greeted Cas with open arms, has no idea what it had been like.

“Go back to the store.”

There is an idea forming in the back of Cas’s mind and he knows that it’s a bad one, but he can’t help it.  He wants this little meeting to go on.

“Stay.”

The cashier gives him an odd look as he walks back in, which only gets odder when he comes back with yet another pie.

“Going to a party?” he asks.

Cas shrugs noncommittally and comes back outside.  Dean is still thankfully idling.

“Enjoy your heart attack.”

Dean pulls into a parking spot and locks the car into place.  Then, he takes the pie from Cas and unwraps it.

“No concern for my well-being,” he replies.

Cas sighs.  It’s so like him, the over-dramatic clutching of the chest, the fake gasp.

“Do you remember the birthday cake we tried to make Sam?”

Oh, he does.  Cas grins, the smile splitting across his face.

“That cake you thought needed more baking—” Cas begins.

“—and burned into a scorch mark on the platter?” Dean finishes, crowing with laughter.

“That cake?” Cas asks, leaning a bit towards him. 

It’s like the red strings myth from China.  Two people, tied together, fates intertwined, drawn close time and time again.

 “Told you not to!” Cas howls, surprising them both when he reaches out and grabs Dean’s arm.  It’s warm and soft under his hand, even though a layer of leather.

He misses this, the easy way that they fall together like puzzle pieces that don’t look like they’ll fit until they’re pushed together.  Cas wants them to fit together again.

“We can hide it with the icing,” Dean laughs.

They collapse against each other, practically howling with laughter, and if Cas’s chest wasn’t aching with it, he’d cry.

“You used the entire box!”

He’d told him, over and over again to check the directions and Dean had refused.  Every bite of the cake attested to that.

“Mom was about to explode.”

He’d seen the obituary, but he hadn’t gone to the funeral.  Cas leans away from him, the shame of it sticking in his throat.

“I heard about your mother. I’m sorry.”

Mary Winchester, dead. Even two years later, there was a dull ache in his chest.  Mary had been like a second mother, and he hadn’t been there.

 “Thanks.”

They laugh away the darkness that settles after that little chat.  Cas finds himself watching Dean more than paying attention to the conversation.  There are a few lines between his eyebrows and at the corners of his mouth that weren’t there before.  He’s older, but it suits him.  He and Dean are slowly getting sucked into their old patterns.

He thinks of Daphne and the thought of her tongue tipped smile makes a swell of affection rise in his chest, but it isn’t love, not really.  It’s the same love his has for Michael, for Gabriel, for Anna.  (Not, he realizes with a twist of his gut, for his mother).

She’s wonderful and she loves him.  That should be enough, but it isn’t.  He still finds himself thinking of the family he’d found in the Winchesters, the way Mary had made him a third son, the way he’d helped Sam study for his exams, hours spent pouring over textbooks with Dean rolling his eyes in the background.

And then there is Dean, joking with him, watching horrible movies that Cas only enjoys because he likes watching the reactions play across his face.

They’d worked, back then, but this is now and he has a duty to perform and a promise to keep and he _can’t do this_.

Ten o’clock.

Mother is going to kill him.

“I should let you go.  Salads don’t just make themselves.”

Cas leans to get out of the car.

“You were right.”  It’s like a river when you hit the rapids, splashing and gushing and pounding against itself.  “Daphne—she’s a wonderful woman.  Really, she is.  She would make a fantastic friend, but…she’s not what she’s supposed to be.  Or—well, I’m not making her what she supposed to be.”

Cas stares at him, begging him to understand.  It’s Dean.  Of course he does.  He puts his hand on Cas’s shoulder, and it’s like fire, his entire body focused on that one point of contact.

“If you, uh—I mean.  If you change your mind.  About Daphne, that is.  Um, give me a call.  Actually, give me a call anyway.”

They use a ripped up napkin that had been used to pad the coffee holder so it would hold Dean’s coffee cup.  Cas hands his number over, and it feels final.

“Merry Christmas,” Cas says, smiling at him. “Goodbye, Dean.”

“Merry Christmas, Cas.”

It’s Christmas Eve and Castiel is walking away from the warm interior of Dean’s car, back to the life that he’s pretending for the moment is his.

Above him, the snow turns into rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter will be posted on Christmas Eve!


	3. Auld Lang Syne

It’s Christmas Eve again and rain is coming down in sheets. Individual drops chase each other in tracks down the window pane. Dean hauls his niece on to his lap and props her up so she can see outside. There isn’t much to observe. Sam and Jess’s neighborhood isn’t particularly festive. Even the people in his apartment complex have bothered with at least a wreath on their front doors. Killjoys.

“Blue Christmas,” Annie observes.

According to Sam, that had been her favorite song this year. He had no idea where she’d picked it up. (Dean did. Elvis was too good to be kept away from impressionable nieces).

"Yep,” Dean agrees. He hasn’t spent much time thinking about the meeting with Cas—a year ago tonight—but there are still moments that remind him. This is one of them. Two years running, they had a rainy Christmas.

“Want anything to drink?” Sam calls from the kitchen, poking his head around the corner.

Annie squeals and jumps off Dean’s lap. He gives a small oof as she pushes off, but the little girl is already gone, scurrying across the hardwood to fling herself around her dad’s knees.

"Nah, I’m good.”

Sam smirks at him. “Getting old?”

Dean mouths a word—one that Annie isn’t supposed to know but probably does because Dean is a bad influence and has no filter—over at his brother. Sam simply rolls his eyes and heads back into the kitchen.

"Do you want a hand?” Dean asks, easing himself off the couch.

It’s Jess that answers this time, shrugging helplessly. “Gotta ask your brother about that one. He’s the cook around here.”

Dean grimaces, remembering the Thanksgiving turkey attempt from a few weeks ago. Jess, determined to prove that she could actually put a meal together, had decided that she should be in charge of the dinner this year. The turkey had somehow come out singed on one end and undercooked on the other. Jess whacks him on the arm as she walks by.

"You don’t get an opinion, Pie-Boy,” Jess says fondly.

"Oh no,” Sam says, waving Dean away. “Absolutely not. I like my kitchen in one piece, thanks. Annie can help out.”

There’s a wail from upstairs before Dean has a chance to answer. Drew, exercising those lungs already. Dean smiles.

“I trust you with that. Baby duty.”

Rolling his eyes, but never passing up the opportunity to spend more time with his youngest niece, Dean heads up the steps. The screaming doesn’t stop until he pushes open the door. Drew blinks innocently up at him as if to say ‘Crying? Who, me?’ Just like her dad, Dean can never quite tell what color her eyes are.

"Come on, you,” he says, scooping her out of the crib.

Drew coos happily as they head back down the steps. Before they get back to the kitchen, the doorbell rings.

"Could you get that?” Sam asks. Sighing, Dean tugs open the door to a blast of cold. He shields Drew the best he can.

"Hello, Dean.”

It’s not the cold air that takes his breath away. Dean juggles Drew in his arms as he opens the door wider.

“Sam? Can you take Drew?”

In the time it takes for Sam to leave the kitchen, Dean and Cas have sized each other up, just like they did last time.

“Dean, wha—Cas?”

The two stare each other down. Dean had never actually gotten around to telling his brother about the accidental run-in at the grocery store last Christmas Eve. To him, it seems like a completely unprompted visit from someone Dean hadn’t spoken to in four years. Whoops.

Cas inclines his head, that same, awkward, bird-like gesture that he’d always done when they were kids. A stiffness that had never existed between Sam and Cas before settles over the group.

“Maybe you should go,” Sam says, voice clipped.

He doesn’t understand—how could he? He sees only someone who had hurt his brother, back again. When did Sam become the protective one? Had it been when he and Jess had had kids? When he’d gotten married? When he’d gone to school?

“It’s fine,” Dean says to calm both Sam’s rising temper and Cas’s rising panic. “Take Drew, would you? We’re gonna need a minute.”

And he steps outside.

Drew and Sam have equally concerned expressions on their faces, though Dean suspects that Drew is more worried about her next bottle.

"His hair is longer,” Cas observes after a moment of silence.

Dean can’t stop the bark of laughter that spills out at that. Then again, he doesn’t really want to.

"I keep telling him to get it cut, but Jess likes it so I guess I’m outvoted.”

The rain is still coming down. Thankfully, Sam and Jess’s porch is covered, because Cas is showing no desire to come inside, even though his coat is drenched and he has to be chilled to the bone.

"Why’re you here, man?” Dean asks, taking in the sight of him. “It’s not to compliment Sam’s hair.”

Cas shakes his head, the corner of his mouth twitching up in that all-too-familiar ‘I’m amused by I don’t want you to know’ smirk.

"No, it’s not,” he agrees. “I talked to Daphne.”

It’s like the ground has dropped beneath his feet, that horrible moment at the top of a roller coaster right before he curses Sam for dragging him so high in the air. He’s forced to wait for Cas to continue.

"And?” he asks, throat dry and voice raspy despite his best efforts to keep it otherwise.

“I explained the situation to her, and…” Cas shifts uncomfortably.

Dean’s heart is pounding so loudly in his chest that he thinks that Cas must be able to hear it.

"Is she all right?”

After the meeting last year, Dean had pulled out an old, dusty yearbook and gone through it. Daphne Allen had been two years behind them and a member of the gardening club. She’d been nice, and relatively un-annoying (well, as un-annoying as a sophomore could be). He hadn’t realized that she and Cas were friends. He couldn’t help thinking about that sweet smile from the yearbook crumpling. Dean didn’t want that. Cas sighs.

“She took it better than I thought she would.”

Dean waits, knowing that if he pushes, Cas will clam up and he won’t get anything else out of him.

"Actually, she said that she’d always thought we were more than friends.”

They only manage to exchange a single look before bursting into laughter.

"The entire school knew before we did,” Cas laughs.

"Not to mention Sammy.”

He’d been on Dean’s case for an entire month leading up to him finally asking Cas out. Somehow, his younger brother always knew. It was like a sixth sense with him.

“That was a few weeks ago, though,” Cas says, sobering up. “I didn’t want to tell her at Christmas. I’ve been working up the courage to come over here for a while now.”

Dean’s throat is oddly constricted, even though this is the closest he’s felt to content in a long time.

“What about your mom?”

Dean can’t imagine Naomi Novak would ever be okay with this in any world. Cas shrugs.

"I believe my exact words were ‘take me or leave me.’ She left.”

Dean claps a hand on his shoulder, aware that there isn’t anything he can do to make it any better.

"Her loss,” he says, because it is.

He remembers Cas, all the way at the very start. Fingers sticky from glue in the art room. Chasing each other through the playground, finding new, unorthodox ways through the equipment. Catching grapes in their mouths in the summertime, hitting each other in the face more often than not. Tossing around a beach ball at the public pool, patching it up with duct tape until the entire thing was a silver blob. Eating popsicles on the front porch and counting the cars as they went by. Comparing schedules and ignoring the classes they didn’t have together in favor of the ones they did. Studying, throwing wadded up notecards at each other when they just couldn’t focus anymore. Wondering what it would be like to kiss him, just once, and then finally doing it. Those are the memories of the Cas he was and the Cas he could be again, and those are memories that Naomi doesn’t deserve.

"Come inside?” he invites.

They walk in together, Dean tangling his fingers with Cas’s the way they used to. They still fit perfectly. Dean gives his fingers a quick squeeze, for old time’s sake, and the future.

"Get you warmed up,” he says, pulling Cas towards the fire.

And he leads Cas back into his life.

Outside, the rain slows and the drops grow into snowflakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This work is inspired by the wonderful song Same Old Lang Syne by the talented Dan Fogelberg. I encourage you to look it up. This story wouldn't have happened without it!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


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